Measured amounts of various fluid substances, flowable dry products, and solid substances are increasingly commonly dispensed in relatively small flexible packages often composed of plastic or foil. The substances and products include a wide variety of products, including foodstuffs such as condiments, personal care products such as shampoos, cleaning products such as packaged “wipes,” and pharmaceutical products such as medications.
A typical example is that of the ubiquitous single serving ketchup pack, which is generally formed of two sheets of foil or plastic, superimposed over one another and then sealed together around the periphery, with a notch or other means to facilitate tearing one edge away from the container. The user tears open the container dispenses the condiment, and then disposes of the package. Similar single unit, single dose containers are also often used to house dry flowable products, such as salt and solid substances, such as pills and medications.
Such packaging, while relatively simple and inexpensive, poses numerous drawbacks in this most simple embodiment. Firstly, the simplest such package contains no integral means for directing or spreading the dispensed fluid. In particular, thick fluids tend to be dispensed as a bolus, leaving the user to find an implement to spread the bolus, or otherwise to improvise with the possibly unsanitary outside of the now empty package to form a crude spreader. Alternatively, thin fluids tend to be dispensed in a difficult to control stream.
Second, the package can be quite difficult to open, particularly for those with arthritic hands or otherwise weakened grip strength. This difficulty is at least in part caused by the fact that, in the simplest conventional embodiments of this package, it is necessary to tear away one of the sidewalls of the packaging in order to release the contents. Such a sidewall must be relatively strong in order to contain the contents under normal handling conditions, which may include accidental compression. Even a small amount of moisture or skin oil on the surface of the packaging can make gripping and tearing the generally small package nearly impossible. It is extremely common to see frustrated users of such packaging using their teeth to open ostensibly manually “tear open” packages. Such a technique poses obvious aesthetic and hygienic issues.
Third, velocity of the product as it is expelled from the packaging varies immensely with the characteristics of the product, the relative amount of side wall opened, and the pressure, which is applied to expel the contents. Anyone who has squeezed a ketchup package with only a pinpoint opening in its side can testify to the extreme distances the condiment can be propelled, often onto clothing, furniture, or even other persons.
Fourth, prior packaging has lacked the ability to efficiently and separately house products or substances that are to be mixed together just prior to administration.
Various attempts have been made over the years to address these problems, with varying degrees of success. The creation of packaged, pre-moistened towelettes, facilitates spreading but requires a handling of the dispensed contents. Pre-loaded, disposable, swabs obviate handling, but contain very small amounts of dispensable liquid. As to the problem of spreading more than a minimal amount of liquid without handling the liquid, for example, the need to facilitate spreading a dispensed liquid was addressed by means of an integral roller in U.S. Pat. No. 5,577,851 to Koptis. The '851 patent teaches a sponge applicator attached to a tube dispenser that contains multiple unit quantities of a substance, such as painter's spackle, to be dispensed. After use, the sponge applicator is designed to be removed, cleaned, and returned to the tube dispenser. The reuse of the sponge applicator raises the issues of potential hardening and chemical or bacterial deterioration of residual product in the sponge and therefore the dispensing of contaminated product upon the container's next use. This makes it unsuitable for use with products such as those intended for human consumption, where bacterial contamination may be devastating. Such sensitive products can be protected with single use, or “throw away” sponge applicators, but the complexity of the '851 device makes it ineffective on a cost basis for single use containers.
A similar attempt to provide an integral spreader is seen in U.S. Pat. No. D363,377, which provides a roller atop a dispensing container. The roller spreads the dispensed fluid, but is subject to the same cleaning and hygienic drawbacks posed by the sponge pad applicator of the '264 patent.
Efforts to simplify an integral spreading means to make designs suitable for single use containers have exhibited mixed success. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,264 to Koptis teaches a variation on the simplest form of packaging, that of two superimposed sheets sealed together around their periphery, with the provision of peelable flaps along one edge of the package. The user peels back the flaps, pulling apart one sealed edge of the package and thus exposing the contents. The peeled back flaps, at an approximate 90-degree angle to the package, thereby provide a butterfly wing type spreader for spreading the contents. Such a design obviates any need to clean or re-use the spreading device, as the entire unit is disposable.
However, the utility of the '264 design has been found to be directly proportional to the viscosity of the fluid dispensed. For example, fluids with a high viscosity, such as ketchup or heavy creams, tend to be dispensed as the design envisions, as a discrete bolus, whereupon they can be effectively smeared about the intended surface by the butterfly wings. However, experimentation has shown that liquids of low viscosity, such as some pharmaceutical preparations and other relatively thin liquids, tend to be dispensed from the opened container in a stream, as opposed to a bolus, and run out of the flap or wing spreading area before they can be effectively spread.
The '264 device attempts to counter this propensity by disclosing an embodiment wherein an absorbent pad either is applied in two pieces to the opposing flaps or is applied in a single piece bridging the flaps. Such structures are designed to provide an absorbent surface area to facilitate the spreading of the dispensed fluid. However, experimentation with the design has revealed that it is marginally, at best, effective for this purposed. In practice, separate pads that do not bridge the container opening may increase absorbency for spreading, but do nothing to retard the sudden flow of material from the ruptured packaging. Even in the embodiment wherein the absorbent pad bridges the opening, practice has shown that when the pouch is squeezed and the frangible seal under the absorbent pad breaks, the contents of the pouch burst through the seal and the liquid tends to squirt through the absorbent pad, rather than being gently absorbed into the pad as intended.
As to the second problem, that of facilitating the opening of the container, various methods have been proposed. The '264 device, discussed above, provides enlarged tear flaps that are intended to facilitate gripping the container, however, the problem of tearing the relatively strong sidewall of the container still remains.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,921,137 to Heijenga, the container is equipped with an enlarged ear-like structure that facilitates grip. In addition, the '137 device contains, within the ear-like structure, a preformed channel portion that attempts to address the third problem, that of dependably producing a large enough egress channel for the dispensed material so as to minimize excessive pressure effects, such as uncontrolled squirting of the contents. However, the '137 device makes no provision to address the first problem, that of spreading a bolus of dispensed liquid.
Additional problems are raised with substances that are ideally mixed just prior to use, and the art has long sought an effective means of storing, mixing, and dispensing such substances. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,048 to Haber, et al., teaches a controlled access mixing vial with a mixing and a supplemental container. Collapsing the mixing and supplemental containers is accomplished by means of turning a rotary threaded coupling, which causes a breachable seal to rupture, and then the mixing of the contents of the two containers. Such a device suffers from the inherent mechanical complexity of its design. A mechanically simpler design is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 6,059,443 to Casey. In the '443 device, a mixing container holds a smaller storage container suspended at an egress end, where it is closed off from the mixing container by a seal. If the seal is removed and a specially configured cap is placed over the egress end, agitation of the mixing container will cause the contents of the storage container to be shaken into the mixing container. While this device is inherently simpler, it lacks the closed nature of the more complex '048 device.
What has been needed, and heretofore unavailable, is a disposable, unit dose container for storing and dispensing fluid substances, flowable dry products, and/or solid substances that allows for easy opening and potential mixing and application of the contents without physically touching the contents. Such a storage and dispensing pouch must be inexpensive and easy to manufacture, maintain the integrity of the contents until dispensing, and must reliably dispense the contents without being unduly susceptible to accidental release, yet be easily susceptible to intended opening by the user, who may include persons of limited strength, coordination, or sight. One particular embodiment may incorporate an absorbent pad capable of protection by a sterility enhancing cover that can be easily removed just prior to dispensing. The design of the pad facilitates easy and even spreading of the container contents, with the absorbent pad being soft and comfortable in applications involving spreading of liquid upon the skin.